I’m not sure whether sharing this is allowed here, but it might help people who urgently need somewhere to stay because of difficult circumstances, particularly those without Premium membership or who do not meet all the requirements for claiming insurance.
Some possible options:
Couchsurfing offers free stays on someone’s couch or in a spare room, with reviews available to check.
Host A Sister connects women who can offer other women a free place to stay.
Her Travel Circle offers peer reviewed stays for women travelling alone. The stays may be free, although membership currently costs £75 for the first year.
BeWelcome and Trustroots are other hospitality exchange communities offering free stays.
Normador
Some Nomador members also offer a one night stopover.
I’m a pet sitter but I will be spending the entire winter at home in Santa Cruz california. Because I’ve experienced the need for an overnight stay between sits and airbnbs etc get really expensive, I am going to be offering my spare bedroom in my house for the winter for house sitters passing through the area that will need 1 to 3 nights stay between sits. I clearly haven’t gotten around to it yet but I will be creating a separate post on the topic. I encourage others to participate. Great way to meet other sitters on your travels.
That is a very generous and lovely offer @JulieV . Maybe there could be a separate “if you need gap accommodation” post set up with members who offer this. People could just link up. THS are not going to set up anything though because no advantage to them but I absolutely applaud the idea.
We belong to a home exchange organization that has a separate category to share a “private room” in one’s home for “guest points.” I did a quick search in Paris, just for an example, and I see over 200 home exchange members offering a “private room” for guests. Amazing! Obviously, a sitter would need to be a member and have a home to exchange, but this is another alternative to hotels and Airbnb’s for lodging in between sits.
@PVGemini Thank you for the information. It sounds like a lovely initiative. I found the platform with the help of AI and discovered that the membership fee depends on your country. It costs €175 per year in the Netherlands and $235 per year in the United States.
It is an interesting system. You earn GuestPoints by hosting people and can then use those points to stay with other members. We would mainly participate because we enjoy meeting and hosting people. Saving money would be a nice bonus, although I am not sure we would use it enough to justify the membership fee. But you never know!
It is definitely a useful tip, so thank you for sharing it.
You are very welcome! During our 5 years of membership, we have stayed in homes for 167 nights, in exchange for making our home available. It has definitely paid for itself, and we have made lots of new friends, and had some interesting, fun adventures in several countries. We have a month long stay planned in Mexico in Feb 2027–huge value!